


The Great Capers of the Great Giovanni Potage

by Lanesy



Series: Red Wood Divergence AU [3]
Category: Epithet Erased (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22110010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanesy/pseuds/Lanesy
Summary: Giovanni recounts his most villainous moments.
Relationships: Giovanni Potage & Howie Honeyglow, Molly Blyndeff & Giovanni Potage, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Red Wood Divergence AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1581829
Comments: 9
Kudos: 113





	1. The Framing Device

“Hello and good lunch everyone, I'm your host Alda Long. Today I am interviewing Nobel Peace Prize winner and CEO of the BOYS Union, Giovanni Potage. Tell me, how it feels being named Hero of the Year.” An overly cheery hostess shoves a microphone in Giovanni's face. 

“It is lovely being here, Alda. And let me tell you, I am loving that dress.” Giovanni starts out calm and sweet. “But what gets on my nerves is that no one can recognize me for the clearly great villain I am. Hero of the Year? What an insult!” Giovanni follows dramatically.

“He thinks he's a villain.” Alda fakes whispering to the audience. A cue light comes on and the room is filled with laughter as Giovanni grows more furious and takes the microphone from Alda's freshly manicured hand.

“I have evaded the police, kidnapped children, made threats, destroyed property and many other crimes. I even made the most evil thing imaginable, a union! Imagine paying to work and all the strikes that were only possible because of me.” boasts Giovanni.

“Is that so?” Alda asks, thinking that Giovanni's rant is just a joke. “We have someone on our staff with a memory based epithet. He can look into someone's mind and show us Giovanni's memories. Everyone give a warm welcome to Rhea Wynde.” Another cue light turns on and the audience claps. “Our guest Mr. Potage signed some papers and we are legally able to show any moment in his memories.”

“Wait, I agreed to what?” A baffled Giovanni asks halfway through a sip of coffee.

“Rhea, please show the audience an example of Giovanni evading the police.” Alda requests as the camera shifts to a blank clearing in the room. Rhea simply nods as holograms of city streets and a younger Giovanni appear.


	2. Police Evasion

“Gotta hide. Gotta hide.” Giovanni pants, looking for a way to escape that blonde police lady that always seems to follow him.

 _Maybe the government finally recognized my evilness and secretly placed a tracker on me!_ The Soupman briefly stops to muse to himself until he hears the cop calling for him again. Her voice is growing louder and angrier. _Crap, she's getting closer._ Giovanni ducks into a fenced construction site.

“Hey kid! How's it been?” A familiar gerbil like man asks Giovanni, only to be ignored. “Hey, no need to brush me off.” Ramsey spots Percy running around the corner. “Oh, I see what's going on here. Hey Percy!” Ramsey waves down his favorite lady cop. “How are ya doing? Here to make sure I'm not up to any forging or did you just want to say hi to your good friend?” He wraps his good arm around Percy's shoulder and starts walking in the opposite direction.

It's horribly noisy and busy in the construction site, but Giovanni figures that's in his favor. Maybe the cop won't be able to hear his footsteps and maybe he could blend in with workers. He grabs a spare helmet near the entrance.

“The craftsmanship on this is amazing.” Giovanni comments after spotting the bee carving on the side of the helmet. He brushes his hair back and puts the helmet on before joining the other workers. It's really hard making stuff with bangs in sight, he really needs to get a new haircut soon, or bobby pins from Moxie.

None of the workers seem to care when Giovanni suddenly joins the group or his horrible skills with the wrench. They all secretly think he's a new hire and know better than to make fun of the fresh meat because Howie doesn't take well to that. Occasionally, they offer Giovanni some advice to better use a wrench and he quietly thanks them.

“Wow, this is a lot harder than I thought. You guys are doing a great job.” Giovanni compliments the worker bees. “Man, I'm starving.” Giovanni moans and materializes a soup filled thermos. The construction workers start to murmur. “Oh, how rude of me not to offer. Would you guys like any? I can take requests.”

On the other side of the site, a powerful man realizes the sound of wrench clattering suddenly went down by several decibels. His workers must be taking an early break, something must be horribly wrong. Howie leaves his workplace and walks to the problem area, he immediately spots an extra head in the group and his workers slurping on steaming soup. He approaches the obvious impostor and grips his shoulder. The pink haired noodle turns around and Howie is greeted with teary eyes and a sniveling nose.

“Are these your beautiful boys?” Giovanni's eyes seem to grow twice in size and glitter for a moment. “They look so happy! I wish I could keep my minions that happy all of the time.” Howie was expecting a more terrified reaction. Caught off guard, Howie loosens his grip. Giovanni eyes the surrounding area. Satisfied with his findings, or lack thereof, Giovanni stand on his toes and whispers into Howie's ear. “You got any tips?”

"What are you doing here?" Howie growls.

“I'm trying to hide from the police lady. But then I started talking to your wonderful minions. Their craftsmanship is amazing. Even though personally I'm more of a knitting man. Anyway, can I hire you guys to build me a secret lair?” Giovanni asks with a wink and two finger snaps.

At this point, all of Howie's anger has turned into confusion. “We start at $500 an hour plus construction materials and-” Howie drones.

“I don't have that kind of money.” The former Bonzai Captain slumps. “Yet!” A triumphant finger points to the air as Giovanni perks himself up again. “But when I do, I totally want to hire you guys. I value an employer who treats his workers right.” Giovanni pulls a thermos from his pocket and gives it to Howie. “It's honey carrot soup. It's the only thing all your boys wanted.” 

Howie opens the thermos and examines the contents. It's orange, so the carrot bit checks out and a hesitant sniff reveals it is sweetened by honey. The gray man takes a gulp to check for poison. He doesn't want any of his workers getting sick or worse, they have a deadline to meet after all. “It's alright. I give it a solid 85.”

Giovanni beams at the compliment. “Why thank you. So anyway-.” Percy enters the construction site, causing Giovanni to cut off the conversation and hide among the worker bees.

“Hello, Percy.” Howie greets the cop. It's as cold as steel.

“Hello, Howie.” Percy exchanges an equally lifeless greeting. “I'm looking for a criminal suspect. A lanky young man in his earlier twenties with salmon colored hair. He goes by Giovanni Potage, but also has other aliases such as Vincent Murder. Have you happened to come across an individual with such a description?”

“Nope.” Howie doesn't even bother parting his teeth.

“But I see an individual baring similar qualities to the ones I just listed behind you.” Percy leans to the side to get a closer look at the man. Howie side steps in front and breaks the line of sight.

“Him?” A gray thumb points behind Howie's back. “You mean Steve? He's been with me since this morning and I'm sure all my worker bees can confirm it.” A small army of heads behind Howie nod in agreement. “So I'd appreciate it if you'd stop harassing my bees and let us work. No need to get jealous that we outbid you on one contract.”

“Very well then, I will leave your work. Please do contact me if you do spot anyone matching the earlier description” Sighs Percy. She promptly leaves the constructions site.

“She's gone. You can turn around now.” Howie says.

“Thanks a lot. I owe you one.” Giovanni wipes the sweat underneath his helmet.

“Hmm.” Howie hums. “In that case, you can work with until this project is finished. Shouldn't be more than five more hours.” 

Giovanni immediately begins sweating again.

............

  
It's sunset and Giovanni's soul is attempting to escape from this mortal coil via his mouth, but the skyscraper is built. A few swigs of Ancient Potion help bring Giovanni back on his feet, but he still looks rather zombified and borderline malnourished. Howie comes and pats Giovanni on his back and his spirit makes its second try at leaving his body.

“Your construction skills aren't nearly as good as your soup making, but it isn't the worst I've ever seen.” Howie attempts to praise the noodle man. “If you don't cause me any trouble, I'll let you hide in my construction sites in exchange for some free labor and soup.”

“Does that mean I get to keep the wrench and this cool helmet?” Giovanni asks after successfully reclaiming his soul for the second time tonight.

“Yup. Consider yourself an honorary worker bee.” Howie confirms.

“Sweet! Anyway, I need to get going before I get in trouble with mom for missing curfew. Later” Giovanni runs off into the distance and Howie smirks.  
  



	3. Threats

The holograms fade and a new scene appears. A young girl with a teddy bear hoodie and sniffle in her nose sits on a park bench. Giovanni hands her an ice cream cone, rocky road with melted fudge, peanut butter cup ears and rainbow sprinkles arranged to look like an Ursine, while he eats his plain strawberry and joins her on the bench.

“What's wrong Molly? I haven't seen you this upset in like forever.” His words are soft and comforting.

“It's nothing.” Molly stares at her ice cream before taking a bite. It's an obvious lie.

“Beartrap, as your boss I expect you to be honest with me. You don't want a note on your record do you? It will look bad if for whatever du-" Giovanni reconsiders his wording. "er stupid reason you'd apply for another job.” It's a thinly veiled but ultimately meaningless threat. Molly rolls her green button eyes.

“You can't legally say anything bad about me if I used you as a reference in this state since the Yetes Bill passed about two years. It's considered job poaching.” The answer from the girl is almost mechanical and spoken with a sigh.

“Oh... Really? Huh.” His left eyebrow raises out of confusion. “I thought that Bill was about illegal dumping or something.”

“It was, it's common practice to tack other legislation unto Bills to increase votes.” The teenage girl doesn't even look at Giovanni, she just bites off one of the 'bear ears'.

He takes a second to reconsider his strategy. “Anyway, you better tell me what’s going on or I'll pour soup on your ice cream! I'm thinking Cream of Mushroom.” It's apparent that Giovanni is joking, but Molly doesn't see it as such.

“No! Not Mister Fudgington!” Green eyes open in horror. Quickly, Molly turns around to cover her frozen treat. “It's fine really; it's just some boy in my class being mean to me because he likes me or something. At least that's what Sylvie thinks.”

Giovanni flings his arms and drops his cone. “You talked to him about it before me?” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Sorry, I got a little crazy there. It's good to have other people that you can talk to but it hurts my feelings that you haven't been honest with me. So to make it up to me, you're going to tell me the name of this boy.”

Molly slumps, admitting defeat. “Robin River.” Weakly she points a finger to a boy across the pond. He's making gestures not appropriate for his age group. Giovanni places a hand on Molly's shoulder, gives a quick nod before standing up and walking away. Molly looks away, for deniability purposes, as Giovanni threatens the boy with his Soul Slugger Doom Bat of Maximum Destruction 2000. It's a normal bat with a knife and a wrench taped to it!


End file.
